Mare Nostrum Empires (Academy Games) – First Look!

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Picked up over the summer at Origins ~

Brant Guillory, 30 August 2016

Following a massively successful Kickstarter, and some shipping delays as the manufacture of components needed some tweaking, Academy’s reprint of Mare Nostrum, along with the expansions, finally started to get delivered.  Folks who attended Origins were able to pick them up there.  Hot damn!

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This gallery includes both the base game Empires (on the right) and the Atlas expansion (left)

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First cracking into the Empires box – a rulebook, and an historical reference sheet with information about the heroes and wonders in the game.

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The rulebook is lavishly illustrated and easy to read

 

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It’s not quite a Fantasy-Flight-avalanche of counters and tokens, but once punched out, it’s got to be close.

 

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The wonders and heroes are large counters / small cards, but printed on counter-weight material.

 

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Here’s the full map.

 

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Here’s a detail view of part of the map.

 

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The rest of the box includes a variety of player cards and reference material.  The sorter tray is visible in the box.

 

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These shields fold up to act as screens for your player mat.

 

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And here are the color-coded player mats, as well as a reference card for the gameplay.

 

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Detail of the reference card.

 

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There are also tracking boards for points / resources, and the wonders and heroes available.

 

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The dice are Roman numerals.  Not sure how annoying that’ll be yet.

 

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Detail of the playing pieces.  The fortresses and boats are all the same sculpts, but the armies all have unique helmets.

 

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Another set of pieces.

 

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Inside the Atlas expansion, which adds a 6th player, and an extended map, among other things.

 

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Everything in the box looks like it came straight out of the original.

 

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Map detail from the new expanded board.

 

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Additional heroes, counters, control markers, and more.

 

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The Atlantis player screen and card.

 

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The rulebook includes info for the 6-player expansion.

 

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Here’s the info in the rules about putting the entire map together.

 

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And here’s the fully assembled map, with the expansion on the left.

 

Have you given it a play yet?  Let us know what you think!


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